Future Fact : NEXT L.A.: A look at issues, people and ideas helping to shape the emerging metropolis. : Water Study Reaches Some Dry Conclusions

What a complex relationship we have with water in Los Angeles. We send pipelines hundreds of miles into the interior to find it. We boil our pasta in it, put it on our lawns and cars, and swim in it. A few of us even drink it, though more and more are quenching that thirst in the bottled water aisle of the market.

Once we’re done with all the water we bring down from the mountains, we dump it in the ocean.

It’s a mirage, all this water in a desert land. The Los Angeles County Grand Jury spent the last year looking at the water game and came up with some not-so-surprising conclusions.

“Significant future water shortages” loom in Los Angeles, the jury reports. Officials need to work better at coordinating conservation efforts and the reuse of treated waste water, the jury urged.